US Supreme Court lets Trump’s transgender military ban take effect

May 7, 2025 , 11:08 AM

(March 7, 2025, REUTERS) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, May 6, permitted President Donald Trump’s administration to implement his ban on transgender people in the military, allowing the armed forces to discharge current transgender personnel and reject new recruits while legal challenges play out.

The court granted the Justice Department’s request to lift a federal judge’s nationwide order blocking the military from carrying out Trump’s prohibition on transgender service members. The Republican president’s directive was one of a series of steps he has taken to curb transgender rights.

The court’s brief order was unsigned, as is typical in emergency matters that come before it. The court has a 6-3 conservative majority. Its three liberal justices – Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – publicly dissented from the decision.

Seattle-based U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle found that Trump’s order likely violates the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment right to equal protection under the law.

Trump signed an executive order, in January after returning to the presidency that reversed a policy implemented under his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden that had allowed transgender troops to serve openly in the American armed forces. Biden said at the time that “America is safer when everyone qualified to serve can do so openly and with pride.”

The court’s decision on Tuesday did not resolve the legal merits of the case. The litigation will continue in lower courts and could return to the justices in the future.

In a separate case, Washington, D.C.-based U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes also had issued a nationwide injunction blocking Trump’s ban while that litigation proceeds. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit placed that injunction temporarily on hold.

(Production – Tom Rowe)

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